


Getaway Car

by falloutboiruto



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Genre: Adoption, Attempted Murder, Autistic!Mitsuki, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Dark, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Suicidal Ideation, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 08:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19741942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falloutboiruto/pseuds/falloutboiruto
Summary: As Mitsuki learns about life outside of being a lab rat, he starts to notice the cracks in the facade of his own family.





	1. All the ways you messed up, again and again

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This fanfic will handle SENSITIVE DARK TOPICS(basically it has a very negative interpretation of orochimaru and their relationship with mitsuki) and i think the worst of it is GRAPHIC emotional abuse and some slightly less graphic physical abuse! so i’m warning for that. I think I tagged most of it but if you think I should warn for anything else just ask!  
> edit: there's also a brief (dream) description of a car crash in this chapter, heads up
> 
> beta read by: reaperduckling

The absolute first thing Mitsuki could remember ever happening was waking up on a gurney, squinting at blinding bright lights in the ceiling, with a ringing sound in his ears and barely being able to move any of his limbs. Sometime after when he thought back on this, he was struck with a sudden sense of déjà vu, like it had happened several times before. He also had the vaguest hint of a memory that must’ve taken place even before that, which was; being harvested out of a lab tube by his parent. He sometimes wondered what must’ve happened in the time in-between waking up and waking up the second time to go on a mission, but it didn’t matter now. All that mattered now was getting done with the paperwork preparations that were in order so that Mitsuki could finally, after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, move to Konoha and investigate if this Boruto kid was his sun or not.

In the meantime, he mostly spent his time counting the blue tiles on the corridor walls. To break up this routine Mitsuki would sometimes spar with his parent and even though he’d always end up pinned to a wall with a knife to his throat and find bruises on his arms later, his parent said that he was improving. He figured that since his parent didn’t care about hurting him, maybe it just didn’t matter if his body was injured in some way. There were plenty of replacements of him, anyway. His parent had shown him.

 _“This is what you are,” they had told him, gesturing to the myriad of lab tubes containing his genetic clones. “I could, in theory, replace you in_ a second _. Don’t forget that.”_

_“Can you bring more of them out so I could talk to them?” Mitsuki had asked. “I want to practice interacting with other children before I go to Konoha.”_

_“That won’t be necessary,” they had said, and Mitsuki had stopped asking questions after that._

He had already tried talking to Log, but he wasn't much of a conversationalist.

_“Our parent says that we shouldn’t talk much,” Log had said, hurriedly looking down and averting his gaze. “I wish it wasn’t like this, but they said it’ll intervene with your training.”_

So, back to counting the corridor tiles it was.

_Two thousand and fifty-five_

_Two thousand and fifty-six_

_Two thousand and fifty-seven_

*

Konohagakure was best described as being generally physically and mentally overwhelming. Everything was fast, loud, bright, colorful, and bursting with life. Not at all like his parent’s hideout. Mitsuki didn’t know yet if he preferred _this_ to be isolated at the hideout; he had almost finished counting all of the wall tiles in the areas that he was allowed to access.

Investigating the chakra-stealing superweapon was a bit fun, though. Running into Boruto through it was even better. Actually interacting with other people in general( _including_ Boruto), however, was like pulling teeth. Mitsuki at this point kind of wished that he knew what facial expressions other than smiles meant because no-one seemed all that interested in having a conversation with him for more than a couple of lines and phrases, even if he smiled at them. Maybe what was missing was the authenticity behind it? However, it didn’t matter as his objective wasn’t to make friends. He really didn’t want Boruto to dislike him though, so hurting people during sparring was not an option. Maybe the rules were different for parental figures.

*

Almost drowning didn’t matter to Mitsuki.

_“It matters to me, though!” Boruto had said incredulously. “No-one’s dying on my watch, and that includes you!”_

_Mitsuki hadn’t known what to make of this._

Boruto would certainly change his mind if he knew about Mitsuki having an army of backup clones, but Mitsuki wasn’t sure yet if this was information Boruto would be privy to at some point in the future. Maybe he should just not tell Boruto that, as Boruto telling him that he mattered made Mitsuki feel something unidentifiable that he couldn’t quite name. Maybe it was happiness.

He wasn’t sure yet.

*

Mitsuki told Boruto about the Class Rep being behind the Ghost Incidents. Not because he had wanted Boruto to sabotage him, even if Boruto intervening did turn out for the best, anyways.

_“So, you directly disobeyed my orders and let the superweapon go?” his parent had said._

_“Yes,” Mitsuki had said. He had so badly wanted to see what would happen, that he hadn't been able to resist._

_Orochimaru had just chuckled lowly at the other end of the snake-telephone line._

Now, he was so sure of Boruto being the sun now that nothing else mattered.

*

What Boruto being the Sun actually meant, though, was still mostly a kind of vague, wishy-washy concept to Mitsuki.

_Boruto had laughed slightly maniacally and rubbed his hands together as the cashier assembled his giant ice-cream sundae._

_“Oh yeah! This is going to be so good!” he had cackled._

_Mitsuki had just stared at him. He had never seen Boruto so happy over something so trivial. Happy people, in general, were a fascinating concept to Mitsuki._

_“You don’t want one, Mitsuki?” Boruto had turned around and said. “If you can’t afford one, we can split mine! There’s plenty of it.”_

_“That’s not why…” Mitsuki had begun, but Boruto had already forcibly jammed a plastic spoon into his hand so Mitsuki had kind of no choice but to try a small bit of ice cream. Having not really eaten anything that sweet before, Mitsuki had felt like he were about to vomit._

_“You don’t like it?” Boruto had said, sounding vaguely hurt, apparently having had picked up on this._

_Mitsuki had swiftly taken another spoonful of ice cream and eaten it, anything to make Boruto look happy again._

_“No, it’s great,” he had lied, smiling widely as to make the lie more convincing._

_Boruto had seemed not very convinced at all but had let it slide._

All Mitsuki knew was that he wanted to be as close as he could to Boruto, so that’s what he tried to be.

*

“So... _Orochimaru-san_ ," Shino-sensei spat out as if the words hurt him. "Your son excels in school. He has gotten top grades in every subject."

This didn’t surprise Mitsuki, and it didn’t look like it surprised his parent either.

“That’s great,” Orochimaru said absentmindedly, focusing rather on filing their nails. “I expect nothing less.”

Shino-sensei coughed and suddenly looked very sweaty like he had perhaps run a marathon.

“But maybe you need to consider other factors that are good for child development!”

“Like _what_?”

“Mitsuki clearly struggles a lot with social interaction,” Shino-sensei said. “I think he would benefit from some guidance in that department. I would love to help him with that.”

Mitsuki would actually like that very much.

“That won’t be necessary,” his parent said. “I think it is best if Mitsuki is left to fend for himself in this particular situation as my research focuses mainly on _peer_ interaction. If we followed your suggestion and I let him get needlessly mentored by adults, it could possibly muddle the study results.”

 _Oh_. Maybe he shouldn’t have even thought about it.

“Orochimaru-san, we actually do have a lot of resources available for him here at the academy," Shino-sensei said with increasingly strained politeness. “He’s a textbook example of a very gifted child with autis-“

“Seeing as he’s _my_ child, I’ll be the judge of that.”

The little Mitsuki could see of Shino-sensei’s face underneath his visor flushed bright red.

“You say that he’s your child,” Shino-sensei said, all pretense of being polite dropped. “But _I think_ that you treat him more like a lab guinea pig! It’s like you don’t even care about his wellbeing!”

A pause followed one where the tension in the room was almost visible as electric sparks in the air. Mitsuki now had a stomachache.

“Not another word, Shino-sensei,” Orochimaru said in a low, sing-song voice that made both Mitsuki and Shino-sensei freeze up. “I think it’s best if you mind your own business. Don’t you agree?”

That seemed to be the end of that conversation. They then all looked at his (excellent, mind you) report card for ten more minutes. Mitsuki still kind of wanted to know what _resources_ were _available_ for him, but if his parent had said no it was most likely out of the question.

It didn’t matter, anyway. He wasn’t _really_ here to make friends. Even if he ended up making them, and enjoyed himself immensely doing so.

*

The Genin exams came and went, and Mitsuki was now in Team 7. After miscellaneous misadventures that always worked out for the best, usually because of a mix of impulsive Borutoian intervention and Saradaian actual competence, the Chuunin exams came along. Mitsuki sacrificed his 50/50 chance(or 50/50 risk, depending on how you looked at it) of winning his match against Shinki of Sunagakure for the honestly much more interesting opportunity to stay in Konoha with Boruto. Nonetheless, the Otsutsuki attacked the stadium and Mitsuki thought for a short while that was probably only a couple of minutes yet _seemed_ like eons that Boruto was going to be murdered. Being able to stay in Konoha didn’t matter much at the time matched to that risk.

It all was fine in the end though. Boruto didn’t die, Mitsuki could stay in Konoha albeit had to spend some time in the hospital and the 7th Hokage was rescued. Everything went back to the status quo.

He couldn’t quite shake the feeling of not fitting in though(amongst other things and feelings that he didn’t want to think about), and when he got a letter from a mysterious organization claiming to be made up of synthetic humans such as himself, he committed the biggest mistake in his life so far. He ran.

*

 _Mitsuki was being chased, running along a dark street. He didn’t dare look back and see how the_ thing _chasing him surely was closing in on him but suddenly he heard the roaring of a car’s engine and he was almost run over by a car that came to an abrupt screeching halt just a few centimeters in front of him. One of the doors to the back seat opened._

_“Get in get in get in!!!” Boruto’s panicked voice screamed._

_Mitsuki wasn’t about to waste time, so he got in the car and it quickly picked up momentum and sped away towards a highway. Boruto looked back at him from the driver’s seat, relieved._

_“I can’t believe I made it-“ he panted, sounding just as out of breath as Mitsuki was._

_“Can you drive a car, Boruto?” Mitsuki asked._

_“Uh._ No _.”_

_Boruto(as well as Sarada) were suddenly sitting beside him in the back seat, and Konohamaru-sensei was the one driving the car. This seemed a little bit more logical._

_“What was that_ thing _you were running from?” Konohamaru-sensei asked, not taking his eyes from the road._

_Mitsuki didn’t know._

_“Was it your parent?” Sarada said._

_Kind of, but not quite._

_“Was it from me?” Boruto said, actually sounding quite hurt. Mitsuki would, again, do just about anything for Boruto to not feel hurt._

_“Not so much that,” Mitsuki began. Again, he didn’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t so much his parent that scared him, at least not all the time. And Boruto was definitely not a scary person, Boruto was everything good in this world._

_But were the extreme amount of_ things _that Mitsuki felt about him and had based his entire life and existence around_ _even_ genuine _or something that his parent ha ~~d tricked him into believing-~~_

 _The car crashed into a brick wall in a frenzied glory of exploding flames. Everything went dark_ and Mitsuki woke up, still at the home base of the Fabrications. Mitsuki took this as a giant, flashing neon sign that what he was doing wasn’t right, and betrayed the Fabrications shortly thereafter.

They all made it out _fine_. Except for Sekiei who had died and crumbled to dust right in front of his eyes(that one sure was going straight to the part of his brain where all repressed memories went to die and he’d just _never_ think of it again). In some ways, Mitsuki wished that he himself had met the same fate.

*

After returning to Konoha, he had a lot of time to himself. Maybe too much time. Once, Mitsuki spent hours looking at himself in the bathroom mirror at home. His reflection had stared back with unblinking eyes that somehow seemed too big for his face. If his hair had been darker and longer he’d look like the spitting image of a photograph he’d seen once of his parent’s childhood self. Mitsuki sometimes wondered what his parent’s childhood had been like, if they had struggled with the same feelings of emptiness and that’s why they had ended up creating Mitsuki and Log(and the rest of the clones, still asleep in their lab tubes) to fill the void in their soul. He, however, wasn't really sure of how that theory would work since they never actually talked about anything children and parents were supposed to talk about.

Whenever they’d spend time together it would either just be a health check-in or should they actually have a conversation it’d just be about how Boruto undeniably was the _Sun_ , and nothing else. Orochimaru had never asked about how Mitsuki was feeling for the day, what his latest mission with Team 7 had been like or what his favorite color was. The only time they had ever touched had been briefly during sparring, so actually hugging his parent had always seemed out of the question and out of reach. Orochimaru had never even asked if the two of them could do something _fun_ together as families did for the Parent-Child Day holiday in Konoha. Mitsuki had that day watched from his apartment window the citizens of the village, parents hand in hand with their children, walk the streets and himself felt like he’d been quietly dying on the inside.

The tiles on the bathroom walls suddenly called his interest.

_Nine_

_Ten_

_Eleven_

*

Mikazuki the kitten was apparently now a fixture in Mitsuki’s life.

_“Aw, you two really get along!” Boruto had said, once, when he and Sarada had visited Mitsuki to ‘inspect the cat’. It was a lot more fun now, at home, now that Mikazuki lived with him most of the time._

_“Yeah! It’s like it was fate brought you together,” Sarada had cheered while petting the purring kitten. Then it had bit her. Mikazuki really was fickle._

Surprisingly, Boruto( _and Sarada_ ) also still wanted to be friends with him for some reason even though he( _they_ ) knew about Mitsuki’s origins and well knew from first-hand experience how Mitsuki caused trouble for everyone recently by running away. Boruto had even told him that he wanted to _understan_ d him. That was all that mattered, really.

In contrast, Orochimaru offered to erase all of Mitsuki’s memories like that would solve his issues and that seemed plain wrong. So, Mitsuki refused. Pros: Still having friends. Cons: All-consuming anxiety. Mitsuki imagined a world where he could instead just talk about what was making him sad with his parent and they could, in return, offer him heartfelt advice.

Instead it was like Orochimaru didn’t care about Mitsuki’s wants, needs and/or feelings besides their own grand plans for him. They knew nothing about Mitsuki, and he truly knew nothing about them. He hadn’t really asked either, he supposed. The only thing he actually knew about his parent is that they were neither a man or a woman and knowing this made Mitsuki feel at least somewhat relieved because _that_ was tangible personal information that they had _freely_ shared with him. Cho Cho had once said that two best friends shared a secret, so maybe since his parent had seen it fit to confide their gender to Mitsuki they perhaps really were closer than he’d originally thought.

Maybe.

*

“Hey, are you doing ok?” Boruto asked one day, in a way that at least _felt_ very sudden.

“What?” Mitsuki said. “What makes you think I’m not?”

“You’re just kind of quietly staring out into space,” Boruto said, scratching at his neck awkwardly. “You do it a lot, _especially_ as of late, and I was wondering if it means something. Like you’re feeling, _uh_ , stressed or sad something like that.”

“No?” _Even if he had been, how was he supposed to know?_

“I think it’s just how he is, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Sarada said while dipping an unlucky soon-to-be-eaten French fry in ketchup. They, including Konohamaru-sensei who was reading a magazine, were at Thunder Burger, Mitsuki realized now. They had been for quite a while, actually.

“Ok, _well_. I was just kind of wondering what you were thinking about,” Boruto said. “You don’t talk much, so I guess I just wanted to include you in the conversation.”

“I was counting the tiles on the walls,” Mitsuki said.

“Huh? Is that what you do?” Sarada said incredulously. “Well, if you enjoy it…”

“How many are there here?” Boruto asked.

"I haven't finished counting yet, but in my parent's hideout there are three thousand, six hundred and forty-three in the areas that I was allowed to access. That's what I did mostly before I was allowed to come here to Konoha.”

At this, Konohamaru-sensei looked up from his newspaper, apparently having listened to the entire conversation intently. Well, he was sitting next to them, so it must’ve been hard not to.

“Uh, sounds _fun_ ,” Boruto said, sugary sweet but _ever_ the bad liar.

“Yeah!” Sarada filled in. “I also like keeping lists of things, it helps me continue being organized.”

“You didn’t do anything else?” Konohamaru-sensei asked.

“Well, sometimes my parent and I would spar,” Mitsuki said. “I honestly prefer sparring with you guys, it hurts less.”

Something flashed in Konohamaru-sensei’s eyes at this. Maybe Mitsuki had said too much, like always. Boruto and Sarada looked like they didn’t quite know what to say, so Mitsuki decided to go back to counting the tiles on the walls again.

_Five hundred and eighty-four_

_Five hundred and eighty-five_

_Five hundred and eighty-six_

As they were leaving Thunder Burger after completing their lunch, Konohamaru-sensei put a hand on Mitsuki’s shoulder and started walking very slowly. Mitsuki took the hint, and seconds later Sarada and Boruto were out of earshot, running along on the street like the children they actually were, despite having _extremely_ age-inappropriate combat experience.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Mitsuki asked.

“What you said,” Konohamaru-sensei said. “About sparring with us _hurting less_. We have mild injuries while sparring all the time.”

“Most of those injuries are caused by Boruto tripping over his own feet, though. I think he might be planning on developing it into a distract-type battle maneuver someday, it’ll be great.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Konohamaru-sensei said with something desperate in his eyes. “Do you mean that while you sparred with your parent you were _often_ injured like they weren't being careful with you?"

“Yes,” Mitsuki said. “It doesn’t matter though. I don’t care if I’m in pain, and I’m engineered to heal at an improved rate.”

“It _does_ matter!” Konohamaru-sensei said, raising his voice to the point of Sarada and Boruto looking back at them to see what was going on. Konohamaru-sensei seemed to immediately pick up on this, and whispered something about Mitsuki coming to his house later that evening so that they could have a ‘bro-to-bro chat’. Mikazuki wouldn’t miss Mitsuki if he was just gone for one evening, right?


	2. The games people play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is where the shit kind of hits the fan on the abuse situation so beware!!
> 
> edit: also the medical stuff in this fanfic isn't neccessarily super duper accurate and mostly based on personal experience

Konohamaru-sensei offered Mitsuki some dinner at his house, and he really tried eating a few bites of it. It was some kind of stew over rice and it was actually very tasty for a little bit. Konohamaru-sensei looked at him awkwardly, like he was afraid that Mitsuki’s for him not unusual lack of appetite meant that the food Konohamaru-sensei had cooked himself was somehow unpleasant in this specific case.

“I liked it, don’t worry,” Mitsuki said, more to his lightly used chopsticks and mostly untouched plate of food on the table than to Konohamaru-sensei himself.

“I’ve been wondering… Do you not actually _need_ to eat?” Konohamaru-sensei asked.

Mitsuki just smiled. Maybe the authenticity behind it was missing, like always, but he just didn’t want to talk about it.

“Look,” Konohamaru-sensei said pointedly, apparently wanting to change the subject just as much. “I asked you here because I wanted to talk to you how you’ve been doing after returning to Konoha from the Land of the Earth. I feel like you’ve done great on missions and stuff so _please_ don’t take this as criticism, but I still don’t really know why you left. Something about wanting to see what those Fabrication guys were up to, coupled with a desire to meet other synthetic humans?”

“Yes.”

“Is that all?”

“ _Yes_.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Konohamaru-sensei said between bites of his food. “I think you wanted to escape from something. I can tell that you’re a bit… _different_ than other kids. You seem to struggle with social _stuff_ in general and fitting in and the like and I think that must be really tough for a kid your age. Was that not even a little related to why you ran for it?”

“I guess,” Mitsuki said while making direct eye contact with the _tatami_ mat floorboards.

“Well, maybe I can help you with that!” Konohamaru-sensei proclaimed, voice lighting up in a manner that seemed almost definitely rehearsed. “If you don’t understand a social situation, maybe just ask me about it and I can explain it to you. Does that sound good?”

“Hm,” Mitsuki responded. A long pause dragged on where Konohamaru-sensei just kept on eating and eyed Mitsuki curiously between bites of his food like he wanted him to say something more than that. Maybe it was time?

“Konohamaru-sensei,” Mitsuki began. “The reasons as to why I ran are plentiful, but it was mostly because I didn’t think that Boruto understood me. It hurt me.”

Konohamaru-sensei’s cycled through a wide array of facial expressions at that, but quickly schooled his face into submission into a measured and practiced ‘compassionate’ stare.

“I see. Well, I can explain. You are clearly very close friends, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t harbor any ill will towards you for running away. If you don’t think that he understands you, maybe explain what you’re feeling. _Uh_ , which is?”

He left the end of his sentence dangling, like live bait on a fishing hook. Mitsuki never did so well with that, but he felt unusually brave.

“That I based my entire existence here in Konoha on the premises of being his friend, but he just seemed to be bothered by me sometimes.”

“Eh. _Well_ ,” Konohamaru-sensei said, taken aback. “That’s not a great idea overall. I mean, to base your entire existence around someone else. It really doesn’t matter what kind of relationship it is, you need to exist _for you_.”

“I also don’t know if this feeling is genuine,” Mitsuki said. “Or if it’s something that I was manipulated into by my-

 _“Not another word,_ ” his parent’s voice suddenly hissed in his ear, probably wholly imagined but it felt very, _very_ real, and Mitsuki couldn’t move couldn’t speak couldn’t _think-_

_Mitsuki was running across the drawbridge away from the hideout. Shadows that on closer(and closer, and closer) inspection turned out to be made out of long, black hair were rapidly closing in on him and one even wrapped itself around his leg, he tried to get free but he was completely immobilized. He was trapped._

“Mitsuki? Are you ok? What’s your emergency contac-I mean, _never mind_ , should I get you to a hospital?” Konohamaru-sensei’s voice said _too_ close by his ears, snapping Mitsuki out of it.

Mitsuki blinked slowly at the ceiling, trying to remember where he was. At Konohamaru-sensei’s house, yes? He remembered sitting at a table though, not laying on the ground in a heap.

“Uh,” he said, very intelligently.

“Does this happen often?” Konohamaru-sensei said like he was internally panicking but trying (yet struggling) to stay outwardly calm. “Because this _sure_ seems like a medical issue.”

“I had a dream,” Mitsuki said. “It wasn’t great.”

“What was it about?”

“My parent.”

Konohamaru-sensei swore harshly and helped him up from the floor. Together, they went to the emergency room at the local hospital.

*

“It doesn’t seem like it’s epilepsy like you suspected, Konohamaru-san,” the medic ninja said, probably speaking to both of them but Mitsuki was too busy counting the tiles on the walls in the examination room to really pay any attention.

_Twenty-two_

_Twenty-three_

_Twenty four_

“What is it then?” Konohamaru-sensei asked.

“The problem seems more psychological than not. We’d have to do a long out-patient evaluation process to really know, but we need parental consent for that.”

_Twenty-five_

_Twenty-six_

_Twenty-seven_

_*_

Orochimaru did, in fact, _not_ consent to Mitsuki getting evaluated at the hospital.

“I don’t want them messing with _my_ handiwork,” was their excuse. Like he was _their_ _property._

Mitsuki, in the end, forged his parent’s signature on the form.

 _Autism Spectrum Disorder_ and _Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder_ were quite the combinations of words; they were also hard to understand yet even harder to explain. Mitsuki still tried though. The resources he was able to access in therapy were helpful, and soon enough he almost felt like a real person and not at all like he was completely disconnected from the world around him. He was just a bit different, that’s all, not actually wrong.

But there was something he needed to tell his parent.

*

“It’s unusual for you to come here,” Orochimaru said. “Did you change your mind about erasing your memories or..?”

“No,” Mitsuki said. “I wanted to talk to you. And ask you something.”

His parent’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ve seen a lot of things since moving to Konoha, and from what I’ve seen most families don’t work like ours.”

“Where are you going with this?” Orochimaru scoffed.

“What I’m saying is that I’m wondering if maybe we could be closer. We could be a family where I could tell you things about myself. I actually went to the hospital and got diagnosed wi-“

”That’s enough,” Orochimaru interrupted. “I already told you, no-one but me, _especially not a shrink_ , messes with your brain. It disturbs my precious research.”

”No, it’s _not_ enough. I just want to be honest with yo-“

Orochimaru suddenly stood up while they sighed resignedly, cutting of Mitsuki’s entire sentence. They reached for of the medicine cabinets in the lab room and pulled out a bottle with some kind of liquid in it.

“Sure. We can be a _real_ family,” his parent said, rolling their eyes in a manner that didn’t quite match their words. “Just drink this like a good kid and I’ll get right to it, go to therapy and whatnot. For us.”

They held out a cup full of the mysterious liquid towards Mitsuki.

“ _No_ ,” Mitsuki said. “That looks exactly like the stuff you offered me when you asked me if I wanted to erase my memories.”

“Ah, so you’ve finally caught on. I see that you’re not _quite_ as dumb as I thought,” Orochimaru said, lifting their eyebrows in condescending faux-surprise. “Well, if you’re going to be _this_ bratty I have plenty of other, much less needy clones to play house with. I don’t need you.”

“Why are you saying thi-“

“I’m saying that your existence is completely and utterly worthless if you’re not going to play along,” Orochimaru said. “You know too much about me to be allowed to live. It’s a shame, really. _Good-bye_ , Mitsuki.”

Before Mitsuki knew it, he was knocked into a wall. Only that though, no deadly injuries or anything. He looked up at the sudden harsh, sharp noise of metal clashing with metal and saw that his parent was engaged in an all-out sword battle with Log. He must’ve pushed Mitsuki away last-second.

“Just go! I’ll hold them off!” Log screamed, and Mitsuki just ran for it, knowing that he’d never return.

As he ran, he imagined that Log would manage to escape too and maybe would settle down for a quiet life in a village far away from that awful, _horrible_ place. Maybe Log would even get married and start a family of his own. It wasn’t very likely exactly, but it was a nice, pleasant outcome. He’d play pretend, it was easier.

He thought of the tatami mats in Konohamaru-sensei’s house, at least the ones in the room he had been in.

_One_

_Two_

_Three_


	3. Breathe in, breathe out, lather, rinse, and repeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where the shippy stuff and the comfort part of hurt/comfort comes into play :)

After spending the entire night running back to Konoha without even daring to look back, Mitsuki had two options:

  1. Go to his apartment to get Mikazuki, risk his parent finding him there ( _if_ they were following him), and possibly get murdered.
  2. Just go straight into hiding, but completely abandon Mikazuki.



The choice wasn’t hard to make.

-

The door to his apartment creaked open slowly. Mitsuki peered into the dark room and saw only Mikazuki asleep on the bed, nothing else. He hurriedly put a bag of cat feed, some cat sand in a plastic box, some of Mikazuki’s favorite toys, and the photographs of his friends he had on his bedside table into a big plastic bag and then put a sleeping Mikazuki into the carrier. He just needed to get out.

Mitsuki ran along the quiet streets of Konohagakure. He had no idea what time it was, but it seemed to be just before sunrise. He couldn’t stay with Boruto or Sarada since they weren’t allowed to have pets. There was only one other option.

*

“Hey, watch what you’re doing _you little shit_ -I mean, Mitsuki! What are you doing here? It’s 4 am!” A newly awoken Konohamaru-sensei shouted, looking through his now broken living room window. There was shattered glass everywhere.

“I didn’t mean to shatter the glass. I threw the rock too hard on accident,” Mitsuki said.

Konohamaru-sensei stepped outside in his pajamas and house slippers and squinted aggressively at him. Then, his expression softened as he noticed the cat carrier, and also possibly the fact that Mitsuki was shaking like a leaf in the wind.

“Hey,” Konohamaru-sensei said. “I’ll sweep the glass shards up so you can let your cat out, and you can take a nap in the spare bedroom. We can talk about what happened after the sun has risen, OK?”

*

Mitsuki felt like he was drowning at the bottom of a murky lake, but then he woke up from his dream and remembered the previous night’s events. He, honestly speaking, would have preferred drowning over _that_.

“Mitsuki!” Konohamaru-sensei’s voice called from downstairs. ”I tried to pet your cat, but it keeps biting me! Make it stop!”

Mitsuki made his way down the stairs, wearing a spare pair of pajamas that he had to fold up three times in the legs to be able to walk.

“Mikazuki bites a lot, don’t take it too personally,” Mitsuki explained. “It could mean anything from them wanting food to them wanting to play. But they’re so cute that I forgive them every time.”

“Yeah, I totally understand,” Konohamaru-sensei said, eyes teary presumably both from emotion and pain. Mikazuki released his finger from the grasp of their terrifying kitten jaws and strutted outside to explore. They _truly_ were fickle.

“I suppose you want to know why I’m here,” Mitsuki said after taking a deep breath.

“ _Nah_. Not if you’re not ready to tell me, I mean. You can stay here for a while, it’s chill. I already love your cat to bits.”

Mitsuki didn’t know what to say.

“And I really like you too, of course,” Konohamaru-sensei continued. “But that goes without saying, doesn’t it?”

“I think my parent killed my brother last night,” Mitsuki burst out suddenly. It was like it was too ugly to speak of, like even mentioning it was forbidden. All of the floodgates had opened in more ways than one; his eyes stung.

“ _What_?”

“I went to my parent’s place to talk to them about something unimportant that didn’t matter. I think they tried to kill me, but my brother… He’s an older, earlier edition clone of me. He distracted them so I could escape. I don’t know what happened to him.”

Konohamaru-sensei wrapped his arms around him tightly and said some very kind things that Mitsuki didn't quite remember afterward. They sat together a very long time, talking, until Konohamaru-sensei excused himself to make a private phone call. Mikazuki had, at some point, came back to snuggle up to him. Sometime later (Mitsuki struggled with keeping track of the time at that moment), Konohamaru-sensei came back and told him:

“You can stay here as long as you want, and we can go on missions with Team 7 like usual when you’re feeling up to it. But you will never have to see or hear from your parent _ever again.”_

*

Mitsuki ended up attending a personalized therapy program at the hospital. It was weird, telling someone who was ultimately a stranger to him about his life and also quite exhausting. However, it also made him space out _less_ so the results were good, at least. He sometimes struggled with summoning even his own snakes, as they now seemed to be just one more thing that his parent forced on him. But they were intrinsically a part of him, so there wasn’t really any use in shutting them out. Unlearning and re-learning the things that he thought about himself was a process that he’d probably have to work on his entire life, he was told.

One time, he walked past his old apartment building. It looked like someone else was living in his old apartment now, with green, lush houseplants on the once empty balcony. He suddenly felt himself start to slip away, thinking of blue tiles and being pushed into a wall ~~and what even had happened to Log,~~ but grounded himself by starting to count pieces of gravel on the sidewalk.

_Seven_

_Eight_

_Nine_

“You coming, Mitsuki?” Sarada asked, stopping in her tracks to wait for him.

“Isn’t that where you used to live- _Oh_ ,” Boruto said, suddenly nervous. “We could just take another route. We could walk anywhere but here.”

“It’s ok. It’s probably good practice to walk past it at a distance,” Mitsuki said, and then he went about his day. Sarada and Boruto kept on checking in on him, though. They all really got along, nowadays.

*

Konohamaru-sensei attended the parent-child festival day with Mitsuki the next time it came around.

“Do you want to enter in the eating contest?” Konohamaru-sensei said (possibly as a joke). “Maybe we could even beat the reigning masters from last year?”

“Let’s do it,” Mitsuki said. He was supposed to be trying new things, actually. Just because he usually didn’t eat didn’t meant that he couldn’t. With a tactic that consisted of him unhinging his jaw completely and Konohamaru-sensei just shoveling food in his mouth, they won.

“ _Damn_ ,” Cho Cho said. “I don’t know if I should be disgusted or impressed.”

She didn't say which one it was but still hugged him, holding on for a very long time. She then went back to similarly console her crying father.

*

_Mitsuki was back at the lab, with his parent sitting right in front of him on a stool._

_“What did you do to Log?” Mitsuki asked._

_“Hm, I wonder,” Orochimaru said. “Maybe I erased his memory to keep him from defying me again. Maybe I erased him_ permanently. _Why don’t you come back here and find out?”_

 _Mitsuki, at this point, really wanted to wake up from this awful nightmare right now_ and then he did. He was in his bed at Konohamaru-sensei’s house, but Orochimaru’s voice somehow continued to speak to Mitsuki through one of their own large white snakes that had somehow gotten into the house and was crawled up by his ear.

“I miss you, you know,” Orochimaru’s tinny voice cooed.

“I don’t want you to contact me ever again,” Mitsuki said decisively.

“Aw, that’s really too bad. Don’t you want to know about your brother, then? I _promise_ to tell the truth this time.”

“That doesn’t mean anything coming from you. I’ll find out on my own,” Mitsuki said and shooed the snake away. Mikazuki, with their tail all puffed up, charged into the room like a knight in shining armor and batted at the snake with their paws. Now outnumbered, the snake slithered away sourly, hissing as it went.

The morning after, he told Konohamaru-sensei. After five full minutes of Konohamaru screaming into a pillow in the other room, he came back and said:

“There’s actually already been a search party out looking for Log, y’know. They looked in your parent’s lab too, and he r _eally_ wasn’t there. My guess is that Log escaped somehow and went into hiding, or he’s, _uh_ , entirely _gone_ from this world. So don’t even think about going back there to try to rescue him, you hear me?”

“There’s still the inactive clones, though,” Mitsuki said.

Konohamaru winced.

“Those clones are actually all completely gone from the lab. Your parent refused to tell the search party about what had happened to them. Based on what we know about your parent, they _probably_ didn’t kill them though. It would ruin their chances of further research.”

 _Probably_ was a little bit reassuring. It still kept him up at night, though.

*

He still felt the same way about Boruto, even now that he had escaped from his parent’s terrifying controlling clutches.

“Aw man, I spilled all my ice cream all over my new _Abibas_ jacket!” Boruto exclaimed, having just done exactly that. “I keep having to replace my jackets, because this keeps happening!”

Sarada wordlessly went back to the ice cream stand to get a paper towel, but Mitsuki just stared at Boruto trying to _lick_ off the ice cream off his sleeve. It was so gross that it was fascinating.

“Aw man, now I got ice cream on my new also Abibas shoes too! Kawaki is going to make fun of me when I get home!” Boruto said, but thankfully Sarada was back with the paper towel(s) by now.

“Here you go. Don’t eat the paper towels,” Sarada deadpanned.

“I wasn’t going to!” Boruto said in a manner so defensive that it suggested that the thought might’ve actually crossed his mind at some point.

“ _Hm_ ,” Mitsuki said. That wasn’t at all what he actually wanted to say, he wanted to say so much more. Like how he had with time realized that Boruto wasn’t perfect at all, but that only made him more alluring and less like an impossible ideal that Mitsuki could only admire from afar. Like how Sarada was basically the ultimate foil to both himself and Boruto. Like how the three of them made the perfect team.

Mitsuki decided to just tell them about this later on. Maybe this feeling was just like the snakes, a part of him that just was _him_ , nothing less, and nothing more.

*

“So, Mitsuki,” Shino-sensei said. “I hear that you’re a chuunin now. And going to study medicine, too? As your old teacher I say that’s an excellent choice. You’re great as support.”

“Yes,” Mitsuki said. “Speaking of, is this why you asked me to meet with you in your office? To ask me about my career choice?”

“What else would it be?” Shino-sensei coughed awkwardly.

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you.”

“You know, Mitsuki. You remind me a lot of myself as a kid. I was also introverted and had trouble understanding other people,” Shino-sensei began. “I actually decided to have this meeting with you to check up on how you’re doing career-wise as well as emotionally. You might remember that I offered to help you with support stuff when your, uh, _parent_ was here with you.”

“I’m getting a lot of help from the hospital and Konohamaru-sensei, don’t worry.”

“That’s great to hear. But I actually wanted to apologize for not doing enough for you when you were in my class. Had I given you more support back then, things might not have escalated as badly for you at home.”

Mitsuki had to think about this for a second.

_One_

_Two_

_Three_

“Uh, did I say something wrong?” Shino-sensei finally asked, looking a little bit flustered.

“Only that I think that you did everything you could. My parent is not to be reasoned with,” Mitsuki said.

A beat.

“But I still appreciate you saying that,” Mitsuki continued. He really, really did.

*

The years passed by as dramatically as possible. Boruto had gained a brother in Kawaki but in the end he ended up betraying Boruto in the worst way, and Sarada and Mitsuki were left to pick up the pieces.

“You guys _don’t_ understand,” Boruto wailed while running away from them, but then abruptly stopped and just blinked a couple of time. “Or _uh_ , maybe you do.”

“ _Yes_ , we do,” Sarada and Mitsuki said in unison while jumping up on the roof Boruto had stopped in his tracks on.

“It just hurts so much that they’re gone. _Both_ of them,” Boruto said through gritted teeth. “Even though Kawaki made some very _questionable_ decisions! I hate him, but I also love him!”

“Understandable,” Sarada said.

“And my Dad! He had done _nothing_ wrong, he…”

Boruto was at this point crying too hard to speak coherently. Mitsuki awkwardly touched his shoulder, intending it as a comforting gesture, and Boruto leaned into it.

“We’ll get through this together,” Sarada said. “Ok?”

“You guys were always there for me when I lost my family,” Mitsuki said. “Now it’s time that we do the same.”

“Yeah,” Boruto sniffled. “ _Yeah_ , I guess.”

Mitsuki now knew deep in his bones that he had made the right decision in becoming a medic. His team needed him just as much as he needed them.

*

Konohamaru-sensei was, eventually, named the eighth Hokage.

“I guess _you’re_ the son of the Hokage now,” Boruto chuckled in the low, humorless way he did when he was trying not to cry.

“Yes, I guess I am,” Mitsuki said. “It’s a heavy burden.”

“Yeah, that was probably why Kawaki snapped under pressure and decided to just yeet everything away. _Hue hue hue_!” Boruto cackled, now _definitely_ crying.

Both Mitsuki and Sarada held Boruto’s hands through Konohamaru-sensei’s Hokage-inauguration. They had done that a lot as of late, not just when Boruto was was crying his eyes out like now, but in happier times, too. They had talked a lot about it and came to a sort of bumbling agreement that honestly, was really nice.

*

Sometime after, Mitsuki, who had a day off for once, was doing one of his chores (sweeping Konohamaru-sensei’s yard in his constantly-working-overtime-related absence from the house) as he saw a large white snake skittle towards him on the gravel. Mitsuki decided that this time, he would just chase the snake away with his broom, even if it meant smacking it on its head. He was _not_ doing this again.

“No, wait! Mitsuki, it’s me! Don’t hit _me_!” _Log’s_ voice said through the snake.

Mitsuki put his broom down by just dropping it in surprise.

“I’m sorry it’s taken this long for me to get back to you!” Snake!Log continued. “I had to take every safety precaution to make sure that our parent didn’t intercept my message.”

Mitsuki didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded.

“That night back then,” Snake!Log said. “I had already been so sick of our parent’s crap for a really long time, but when they were about to hurt you… I couldn’t stand it. I fought them off, then grabbed as many of our clone brothers as I possibly could and hid in a village far away that I can’t name because of safety reasons. _They_ might still be watching, y’know. My partner and I are raising them, the clones I mean. We even built them all a special bunk bed. The teachers at their school have a hard time telling them all apart but things are actually going really well otherwise!”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Mitsuki said.

“I’m also _really_ sorry you can’t come visit,” Snake!Log said. “Maybe someday in the future…”

“It’s O.K,” Mitsuki said. “I’m actually a chuunin now and almost done with my medical studies. Things are very politically unstable right now, but once we’re at peace again I will go on missions with my team, all the time, all over the world. Our paths will cross at some point, no doubt about it.”

“That’s all I ever wanted to hear,” Snake!Log said. “And Mitsuki?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t trust _them_. _Ever._ Don’t go back.”

“I’m never going to,” Mitsuki said. “I have a family and a life here. I’m never giving it up.”

The snake nodded, as much as a snake could nod anyway, and slithered away.

*

Konohamaru-sensei really wasn’t home a lot. They were still at war, after all.

One night Mitsuki was home alone, an also unusual occurrence what with now hanging out with Boruto and Sarada almost 24/7 in their _very_ limited free time (they would usually hang out at Boruto’s house. Hima and Hinata-san appreciated the company). Mitsuki was just about to go to bed when _his parent_ called him. They would, from time to time, but he wouldn’t pick up. This time, he did.

 _This_ time, he knew something he didn’t before.

“Oh, did you miss me? I knew you’d come crawling back eventually,” Orochimaru drawled.

”No, I don’t have any reasons to do that. I already know what happened to Log and all the other clones. Your leverage is completely gone,” Mitsuki said.

Orochimaru clicked their tongue irritably in response, but kept quiet otherwise.

“We’re all better off without you,” Mitsuki said.

“I could’ve sworn I monitored all of your actions closely enough, but I guess not. Congratulations on solving your little love triangle in a dare I say _unconventional_ manner, by the way, you've proven yourself to be just as much of a deviant as I am."

"I don’t need your approval, you hold no power over me anymore.”

“Aw, you’re so grown up now.” Orochimaru said. “Comparatively, I mean. Did you really think I was going to kill you, back then? _Silly_. You’re way too important to me, you know. I was just going to erase your memories, really. But if you come back, things will be different. I could have use for another medic at my lab.”

“That’s _worse_ , so no.”

“Well, Mitsuki.” Orochimaru said, voice full of false flattery. “You sure have me beaten, and at my own game nonetheless-“ Mitsuki interrupted Orochimaru mid-sentence by just hanging up on them.

It didn’t matter and it certainly wasn’t important. Mitsuki had already said all that he wanted to say, and whatever Orochimaru was going to say it would surely just be another trick, another attempt to gain power over him. The snake on his shoulder nuzzled his face affectionately and then slithered away into the foliage as to avoid being eaten by the nowadays fearsome hunter Mikazuki.

*

Mitsuki waited up for Konohamaru-sensei to come home late into the night. When Konohamaru-sensei, after finally crawling home and promptly getting to hear about the events of Mitsuki’s evening, preemptively grabbed a pillow to scream into, Mitsuki patted him on the shoulder.

“It’s ok,” Mitsuki said. “It’s all over now.”

“Is it, though?” Konohamaru-sensei said, squinting aggressively at him. “We still have a war to fight, everything’s a mess at HQ, there’s so much _paperwork_ -“

"Still, I'm happier than I've ever been," Mitsuki said. “Thanks to you for letting me stay here, thanks to my partners, and thanks to everyone else in Konoha.”

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” Konohamaru-sensei sighed, but not without affection. “You know, one day maybe you can wear this hat.”

He gestured towards his ceremonial Hokage hat that was sitting on the hat rack.

“That’s Sarada’s job,” Mitsuki chuckled.

“Yeah, I know. I meant it like she’d _maybe_ let you borrow it. For fun.”


	4. Then flourish!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: this was orignally supposed to be the epilouge, but i'll write another, more final epilouge that'll be up soon! stay tuned!

Eventually, _many_ years later, Sarada did actually agree to lend Mitsuki her Hokage hat. But just for a little while. She needed it for appearing professional, she said, even in times of peace.

“I don’t think you need a special hat to look professional. That’s just how you already are on the inside,” Boruto said, lounging on their giant living room couch and eating potato chips.

“Am I fun yet?” Mitsuki said, putting the Hokage hat on. All he could really say about said hat was that it was a bit warm, it didn’t feel very special otherwise. Maybe (definitely) Boruto was right and the Hokage spirit really came from the inside.

“ _The funniest_ ,” Sarada chortled. “And thank you, Boruto. Save some potato chips for me, though.”

“Maybe, _wink_!” Boruto winked. “On the condition that you save your paperwork for tomorrow and come sit down here and watch a movie with me? You too, Mitsuki. Even though I can’t bribe you with food, sadly enough.”

“You don’t have to bribe me,” Mitsuki said absentmindedly, already picking out a movie. The 24th Kagemasa movie would surely be _perfect._

“I _know_ , I’m just trying to be funny,” Boruto explained.

“You don’t have to try to be funny. I already know that you are,” Mitsuki said while starting up the movie.

“Potato chips as a bribe sure works for me, though,” Sarada said between crunchy bites, already having gotten cozy on the couch.

“Honey?” Mitsuki said. Both Sarada and Boruto looked up.

“Which one of us?” Boruto asked. Honestly, the biggest problem in their relationship was that the usage of generic pet names could get a bit confusing when they were all gathered in a room together.

“I meant specifically Sarada in this case,” Mitsuki explained. “I’m going to put your Hokage Hat on the hat rack right now, so wait a second to start the actual movie, ok? I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Run, Mitsuki, run!” Boruto and Sarada screamed in unison, even though their words were a bit muddled though their mouthfuls of chips.

Mitsuki had already seen the movie at least 4 times before and frankly Kagemasa wasn’t his favorite movie franchise. But he didn’t want to miss how both Sarada and Boruto lit up while watching it, even after all this time.

_One_

_Two_

_Three_

After Mitsuki had gotten back to the couch in three seconds blank, Boruto scooched over to make (very little) room for him. Their sitting-on-the-couch-formation could be best described as a three-person dogpile, even though there technically was plenty of room to spare (they usually justified this by saying that the now _very_ geriatric Mikazuki needed their own part of the couch). Sarada pressed the ‘play’ button on the TV remote, and the movie’s opening credits started rolling.


	5. Closure, any way you look at it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brand new epilogue that hopefully wraps up some loose plot threads :) tell me what you think down below!

Sometime in-between many years later and many, _many_ years later, Log eventually did feel safe enough to tell Mitsuki of his whereabouts. Sarada took her first vacation in years, and the three of them went to the location Log had stated in his message.

They found a giant, fancy house and a woman who introduced herself as Log’s wife greeted them.

”Have we met before?” Boruto asked, tilting his head to the side. ”I vaguely remember you from somewhere else.”

“Yes, yes, we have,” The dark-haired woman sighed. “I’m Tagorihime from all those years ago.”

There was a long, slightly uncomfortable pause wherein Boruto squinted at her aggressively.

“I actually sort of recognize you too!” Sarada said. “But from where….”

“I used to be a guardian of Ryuuchi cave,” Tagorihime explained.

“Wait, you mean the White Snake Sage Cave?” Mitsuki said. Nobody had told him that Boruto and Sarada had been there, ever. Or maybe they possibly had, and he had just forgotten about it.

“Oh yeah, right!” Sarada said. The time Mitsuki ran away and Orochimaru told us to look for clues there. It’s been a while, Tagorihime.”

Tagorihime smiled blissfully until Boruto interrupted the nice would-be reunion with:

“Lady, you tried to eat us!” he accused. “Literally! You told me that you missed eating the chakra of children!”

“Oh yeah! _Right_ ,” Sarada said pointedly, crossing her arms.

Mitsuki turned to look at this Tagorihime disbelievingly. He had heard from his parent a very long time ago that man-eating snake spirits were guarding Ryuuchi Cave, and he didn't know if he felt all that comfortable with this woman having raised his clone brothers if that was the case…

“Yeah, _tha_ t,” Tagorihime stuttered, flustered and tomato-red in the face. “That was actually all talk. We never ate anybody, the _Association of Evil Spirits_ had always ranked Ryuuchi Cave as being ‘full of posers'. However, pretending to eat people always sat wrong with me. I was mostly doing it to fit in honestly, so I eventually left the Snake Sisterhood. After that, I met Mitsuki’s brother, Log, and the thirty-one kids came with the territory. I never looked back and I don’t regret a thing.”

"That's very nice," Mitsuki said. “Speaking of, where’s Log? And my brothers?”

“Log will be home soon, but the kids…” Tagorihime said. “They have all gone to college and don’t live with us anymore. You’re invited for the holidays, though! Let’s go inside and wait.”

Well inside of the house, Mitsuki saw an old photo of Log, Tagorihime and his thirty-one(he made sure to count)younger clone brothers. They didn’t all look that similar to him though, most of them seemed to be going through their rebellious teen phases at the time of the photo and therefore sported outlandish hair colors in all the shades of the rainbow.

“Look!” Boruto said, also having had noticed the photo. “Man, _I wish_ you had also dyed your hair pink and turquoise cheetah print when you were a teenager.”

“I could just do that now, though,” Mitsuki said, twiddling a strand of his long hair between his fingers. “Technically.”

“Pfft, don’t.” Sarada chuckled. “I think that might be against hospital dress code. I know, because I oversaw it.”

Suddenly the front door slammed shut and Log entered the room and flinched in fear when he met Mitsuki’s eyes. It was as confusing as it was hurtful.

“Hey-uh, I didn’t know that you were going to come here _now_ ,” Log said, wide eyes unblinking. “I mean, you’re of course welcome, but uh, sorry, I just mistook you for Orochimaru for a second. Its’s the hair. It’s, uh, _long_.”

“Well, I happen to think that Mitsuki’s hair looks very nice!” Boruto stepped in, overprotective as always.

“It’s fine,” Mitsuki said, tapping Boruto’s shoulder with a calming hand.

Log himself looked mostly the same with his shaggy mullet-esque haircut and identifying scar on his cheek, just a bit older and weathered after raising 31 kids.

"This is a lot weirder than I thought it would be," Log said self-deprecatingly, scratching the back of his head. "I thought this would be a heartwarming family reunion, with hugs and tears and the like. But I just straight-up insulted you from the get-go."

“Hm, yes,” Mitsuki said. "Well, we never really got the chance to have a normal relationship to begin with. I don't think we have to fit a certain mold. Anyways, these are my two amazing partners, Sarada who is the 9th Hokage of Konoha, and Boruto.”

“Ey!” Boruto exclaimed while he shook hands with Log. “He _also_ has a cool face scar! I like this dude now.”

Boruto pointed to his own scar that went over his right eye.

“Don’t say that, Boruto!” Sarada hushed him. “Maybe his scar has a sordid history behind it.”

"I just accidentally cut myself one time while shaving, that's it," Log said humorlessly.

That turned out to be the perfect ice breaker because, after that, they all ended up having a nice time. Mitsuki even decided to start trusting Tagorihime fully. Maybe.

*

Later that evening, Mitsuki spotted Log smoking out on the porch, alone. Mitsuki decided to join him, despite his far too deep knowledge about the dangers of secondhand smoking.

“Do you really think me having long hair makes me look like Orochimaru?” Mitsuki asked, cutting right to the chase.

“Uh, yeah. That thing I said. Well, the long hair kind of makes you look like our parent _physically,_ yes,” Log said, seeming to pick and choose his words wisely. “But we look like _them_ no matter what we do, because we're literally genetically related. I think the best thing we can do for ourselves is to just don't care about them and not let them ruin something as silly as a _haircut_ for us. Can you imagine, being scared of long hair because of that shitstain? It’s only giving them too much power, honestly.”

“I think so too.”

“Also, I need to tell you this,” Log said. “I rescued all of the clones that I could find in the lab, but I don’t know if our parent had any of the materials left to make new ones. They still _might_.”

“They probably won’t make any more since the ANBU has them under tight surveillance. But I don’t think it’s very helpful to worry about them possibly hurting other people in the future. It’s out of our control.”

“Is it, though?” Log said in a small voice.

Mitsuki shrugged. It was the least soul-crushing way to think about it, at least. There was no way to get Orochimaru to change and if Mitsuki ever were to try, his parent would most likely use as at a way to try to nestle back into his life again. And he would rather focus on different, happier things, rather than lay awake at night not being able to stop obsessing about it (he’d been there for sure).

“You said it yourself,” Mitsuki said. “We can’t live our lives in fear of them, it just gives them power over us. It’s hard, but we just have to move on.”

Log took a long drag of his cigarette.

“You know,” Mitsuki said. “It’s weird even thinking of Orochimaru as my parent. I haven't for such a long time since I was adopted by my sensei in Konoha. He has been more of a parent and a source of guidance than I could’ve ever hoped for.”

“Didn’t that guy become the 8th Hokage, too?” Log said. “You’re surrounded by hotshots!”

“I guess I am,” Mitsuki said. He really was, it was awesome.

“I wish I’ll get to meet him too someday,” Log said. “Your partners seem so lovely, by the way. You can all come over for the holidays! We already have a custom giant table to fit all of us, you guys can probably squeeze in!”

Mitsuki chuckled lowly. It was a deal.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also tagorihime is a real character from the series whose name i got from the ever so trusty narutopedia, my greatest resource as a writer. this is her article: https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Tagorihime

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please don't forget to leave kudos and if you want to you can comment and tell me what you think of this hehe


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